


When the Days Have No Numbers

by moodlighting



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Canon Continuation, Day At The Beach, Declarations Of Love, Fluff, Friendship, Intimacy, Kissing, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Wrestling, [damen voice] MAKING LOVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-08-10 22:44:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20143219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodlighting/pseuds/moodlighting
Summary: The years pass. Laurent smiles more. Damen takes in every moment.Musings on Laurent's happiness post-canon; with his friends, doing his favorite things, and with Damen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever just *clenches fist* have a mighty need to write about Laurent laughing and being in love and just enjoying his life?
> 
> I have several more chapters planned out for this. They're not really connected plot-wise in any way other than being about Laurent experiencing true happiness. Expect more of the same moving forward! I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I'm enjoying writing them <3
> 
> Title taken from Bon Iver's 00000 Million

From the training arena came the distant sound of body impacting body, the fumbling beat of feet seeking purchase, muffled by sawdust. Even from down the hall, the noise held clear promise of a competitive bout, one worth witnessing. Curiosity piqued, Damen detoured from his path away from the royal mint. Observing for a moment would be a worthy distraction from the matters of milled coinage and copper price inflation, if only a temporary one.

Rounding the corner, Damen gave a friendly nod to an approaching member of the palace staff. Whatever urgency she was attending to did not prevent her from offering a bright smile in return. She bowed her head to her King as she passed him by. The rapid slap of the woman’s sandals echoed around Damen as she hurried down the opposite end of the hall and disappeared.

The sound of men’s voices, next. Two opponents conversing lightly as they briefly disengaged, then met again. Laughter, too.

There was a statue to the right of the arena entrance, a new installation loaned from the palace in Ios. Two Akielon wrestlers, entwined in a complex hold, the burnished bronze of their skin reflecting the light of the high afternoon sun. Laurent had made a ribald comment at the positioning of the men upon first viewing it. Damen had made a valiant attempt not to laugh and failed entirely.

As he came to stand in the threshold of the arena, leaning a shoulder against the arch, Damen was surprised to find Laurent himself engaged in the current bout. Nikandros had him locked in a hold. Only the shine of Laurent’s blond head was visible to Damen, but that alone was enough to identify him.

Damen knew their standing appointment for wrestling instruction was ongoing. Damen also knew that Laurent had long surpassed the need for guidance from Nikandros. Now, one couldn’t help but assume they maintained the appointment simply because they enjoyed each other’s company. Perhaps, one day, Damen would even convince them to admit it. For either of them to say otherwise would certainly be a lie, but it seemed to be the principle of the thing for Laurent and Nikandros. Damen let them carry on with their fiction. He was happy just to know that both Laurent and Nikandros had come to accept the truth in their own private ways.

Neither of them had noticed Damen’s presence in the arena. Nikandros, finding Laurent squirming out of his grasp, shifted into another hold, which Laurent effectively resisted. For a moment, an impasse, as two matched opponents each sought an advantage over the other. A struggle. Then, a misstep on Nikandros’s part. Followed by a mistimed counterbalance from Laurent. Damen saw both of their eyes widen comically as their legs wheeled under them and then disappeared altogether. Nikandros and Laurent tumbled backwards, landing in a heap among the sawdust.

Nikandros was the first to recover. Sprawled on his back, Laurent on his back atop of him, he grappled to get Laurent in a chokehold, and mostly succeeded. A long interlude of writhing on the ground followed, which Damen watched with amusement, until Nikandros managed to get a stronger grip on Laurent. His weight class and two decades of experience finally appeared to win out. With an effortful heave of his legs, and a push on the shoulders, Nikandros bodily flung Laurent off his chest and away.

Laurent, knowing how to fall properly to avoid injury, tucked his body in and used the remaining momentum to roll out across the sawdust. He came to a stop in an inelegant sprawl at the center of the arena, a short distance from where Nikandros was similarly flat on his back.

For a heartbeat, there was only their ragged breathing. Then, Laurent began to laugh.

Damen, in another time, had asked himself whether Laurent even enjoyed sports, despite his many and varied physical talents. Perhaps they had been cultivated purely out of necessity, Damen had thought. In this moment, however, the answer was obvious, as it had been in countless moments that had come before.

Laurent clutched at his stomach as he laughed, curling his legs to his center. He rolled over onto his side to face Nikandros again, who was laughing with him. From his vantage, Damen could see the way Laurent’s face glowed from the exertion, from the joy of an innocent challenge, from the very inside of him, and out.

Damen found himself smiling too.

As both Nikandros and Laurent regained their composure, catching their breath, the awareness of their surroundings seemed to return as well. When Nikandros sat up on his knees, Laurent’s head popped into view from around the width of his body.

“Damen!” he greeted happily, eyes sparkling. Laurent gathered himself up off the ground with ease and strode towards him. “Come to watch me best your Kyros once more, I see.”

Laurent was either unaware or unbothered by the amount of sawdust on his clothing. He wore a simple pair of trousers and a loose shirt, as did Nikandros, and the wood shavings clung to the entirety of the cloth like a second garment. His fine hair - also covered in sawdust - was mussed seemingly beyond a comb’s ability to fix, swept up around his head, not unlike a crown.

For all that Laurent was popularly deemed to be overly discriminating and untouchably elegant, Damen found that this was more often his common state. Outside of the attention of the throne room, without the trappings of royal panoply, it was impossible to forget what Laurent was: a young man, brilliant with life and curiosity, exploring newfound freedoms each day. Happier than his own expectations had ever allowed him to anticipate.

Damen felt lucky to witness it.

He reached forward and plucked a particularly obtrusive wood shaving from Laurent’s hair, tucking a wayward blond strand behind his ear in the process. Laurent grinned up at him.

“Having fun?” Damen asked.

“No,” Laurent lied with a smile. “How did you find the mint?”

Damen considered it. “Querulous at best,” he said.

“Well then,” Laurent’s eyes glimmered. “I look forward to hearing about our coinmaster’s attempts at sweetening you to his argument.”

Damen was looking forward to telling Laurent about the coinmaster’s opinions on the new castings in particular. “Tonight?”

“Of course,” Laurent said.

The evening meal was always theirs to share, with whatever matters of state they chose to attend to or ignore entirely in favor of each other.

“Now, leave us,” Laurent shooed Damen with a wave of his hand. “I won’t have Nikandros embarrassed in front of his King again.”

“You are also the King,” Damen remarked.

“Hmm, yes. How could I forget?” Laurent said, with a teasing glance back at Nikandros. Damen did not miss the roll of Nikandros’s eyes in return.

Damen leaned in to press a goodbye kiss to Laurent’s warm, dusty cheek, which Laurent accepted with closed eyes and a pleased smile. He squeezed Damen’s forearm affectionately and took a step back.

Over Laurent’s shoulder, Damen nodded once to Nikandros, who was still crouched in the sawdust.

“Exalted,” Nikandros said, mirroring Damen’s smile.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Damen announced, looking back to Laurent. He nodded with faux seriousness. “As you were.”

Damen took his leave. As he returned back down the hall in the direction he’d come, he could hear the sound of shuffling feet once more, and Nikandros’s goading, muttered in jest, and the high, ebullient sound of Laurent’s laughter. Damen rounded the corner and exited the palace, stepping out into the Marlas sun.


	2. Chapter 2

The geography surrounding Marlas offered many advantages, strategic and otherwise. The oceanfront, in Damen’s opinion, ranked high among them. A short ride west of the palace, and the familiar hilly fields of rolling grasses tapered and gave way to flatter lands. Perfect for spirited races on horseback, hard dirt slowly surrendering to sand, the promise of the shore and a shining yellow head taking the lead forever urging Damen forward.

Where Ios towered above the Gulf of Atros, high-flung white cliffs offering only a sheer face for waves to break upon, Marlas received the Ellosean Sea with all the ease of a lover, known and familiar; a knoll of soft grasses waving in greeting; the sand below it, golden and sun-warmed, welcoming each bubbling lap of the ocean waves. It was beautiful.

The portion of beach Damen and Laurent frequented in particular was secluded, the pebbled path leading to the water mostly hidden by overgrowth, unknown to the public at large. The only other visitors Damen and Laurent had encountered at the beach were those from the nearby village.

If the local children on the beach today were aware of the presence of their Kings, they paid Damen and Laurent no particular deference. From where he lay in the sun, Damen watched one of the boys totter over to Laurent and, with all the confidence of an overly demanding child, grasp onto the bottom of his bathing suit and yank.

Laurent started in surprise. When he turned and spotted the child attached to his leg, however, his face transformed into a warm, open smile. Immediately, the boy began chattering to him about something in Veretian, pointing excitedly up the shore as he spoke. Laurent crouched down to him and listened, nodding indulgently here and there. The pair seemed to reach an agreement following a brief negotiation, after which Laurent stood and took the boy’s small hand in his own. Together, they set off further up the beach.

They made an unlikely pair. The boy, his brown Akielon skin kissed by the sun, naked apart from the scrap of cloth his mother had undoubtedly tied around his waist for decency’s sake, and Laurent, quick to burn, mostly covered by the absurd beach garment he wore - the sort of fashion Damen knew could only have been conjured in the mind of a certain Veretian cloth merchant.

The bathing suit, as Laurent called it, bore a limited resemblance to a chiton, if only due to its shape and the quality of the Akielon cloth. Like a shirt, the garment featured elbow-length sleeves to protect the fine skin of Laurent’s shoulders and back. Instead of an open skirt, the bathing suit split into cropped pant legs, to protect one’s modesty when submerged in water. The fabric was treated in such a way that water rolled off it instead of being absorbed, much like a seabird’s feathers.

Damen, who preferred to wear nothing at all when swimming, or a simple, unadorned chiton when they found themselves in a public area, regarded the bathing suit with passing amusement. He favored Laurent bare, of course, but accepted the necessity of the garment for the wellbeing of Laurent’s sun-sensitive skin. Wisely, Damen kept all of his thoughts regarding Laurent’s resemblance to a court jester to himself.

Further up the shore, Laurent and his companion seemed to have arrived at whatever oddity had initially caught the boy’s attention. He was pointing excitedly again. Laurent bent down, and when he rose again, he was holding a spiny urchin between a careful forefinger and thumb. The boy began leaping around him with joyful abandon at the sight of it, yelling and laughing and pointing some more. Laurent, slightly bewildered, just watched him with a quirk of a smile across his face.

The excitement had caught the attention of the other local children too, who began to crowd around Laurent and his newfound treasure. Laurent lowered himself to his knees and began speaking softly to them all, likely explaining some fascinating aspect of the creature’s biology to his starry-eyed audience.

Damen, watching all of this take place from where he lay, felt his heart swell in his chest, an unfurling pleasure and an immovable weight. Laurent had an intrinsic skill with children that Damen altogether seemed to lack. Where Damen had to work continuously to earn a child’s trust, children across the kingdom actively sought Laurent out - their enthusiasm always returned equally by Laurent himself. During their beach visits, when they walked together through the market, in the capitol and in every village they frequented, Damen often found himself simply standing aside as Laurent enthralled the kingdom youth with his favorite coin trick, or magicked sweetmeats out of his pockets for every adoring face. Sometimes, Damen could only follow along with an enchanted smile on his own face, watching Laurent walk ahead with a child on his hip and another holding his hand at his side.

“If we want our people to accept us, they have to know us,” Laurent had said, in the earliest days of the alliance.

Making themselves known among the people had seemed guileless at first, an honest desire for them to become Kings welcomed among the common folk. Damen didn’t doubt that was half of Laurent’s intention, but the early interactions with their people had also worked to shatter the unfavorable reputation that had preceded Laurent into their countries’ union. Through force of will, and the inherent warmth of his true nature, Laurent had made himself beloved.

Damen had always admired Laurent’s remarkable efficiency when he set his mind to a cause. And Damen could think of no person more deserving of all of the devotion and admiration of two nations than Laurent. A King of the people...

From the corner of his vision, Damen saw the low-hanging branches at the end of the beach path lift, heralding the arrival of another visitor. It was a young woman, no doubt a guardian to one or several of the children now gathered around Laurent. She spotted Damen first, followed by the palace guards situated along the knoll, and came to a halting stop at the entrance. She looked stricken, having clearly reached the obvious conclusion about the company the children currently kept. Her expression then turned horrified as she looked out across the shore and found the refined King of Vere being splashed indiscriminately with water, several dirty-kneed children attempting to fling themselves on his back at once.

The woman bolted forward, panicked, opening her mouth to put a stop to such unforgivable behavior. Damen interrupted her with a single placating gesture. The woman came to an immediate halt, eyes widening at Damen’s acknowledgment of her. Damen offered her a kind smile in return and just shook his head slightly, waving his hand. _It’s okay,_ he tried to convey, through his relaxed posture and another permissive smile. _Let them be._

He watched the woman go through a complicated series of emotions in rapid succession. Ultimately, she seemed to land on shocked compliance. She inclined her head toward Damen, in obeisance and in recognition of his request. She set off toward the children at a more sedate pace then, settling herself in the sand a short distance away from where they were playing, a watchful guardian.

Damen returned his gaze to Laurent as well, who was now waist-deep in the water, the children splashing through the waves around him. Knowing that Laurent would be kept busy for the foreseeable future, Damen relaxed further into the comfort of the sun and the sand, warm beneath his towel. Soon, he found himself giving in to the sleepy weight drawing his eyelids shut.

With a contented sigh, Damen thought back to the first time he'd taken Laurent to the ocean, during their stay at the summer palace, the very first time they’d visited. Any lingering fantasy he’d had of guiding Laurent through the fundamentals of a swimmer’s stroke had quickly disappeared along with Laurent himself, who had dived neatly into the water upon sighting it. Damen’s eagerness had remained unmoved, however. The ocean was warmer than the Veretian lakes where Laurent had learned to swim, and they were able to spend hours in the water together. Swimming circles around each other, sunning themselves on the marble steps, kissing at their leisure, only the seawater between them.

They’d made love that night, as the sun began to sink below the surface of the water, turning everything around them gold. Damen remembered it well; the simple, rhythmic sound of waves on marble, the lush heat of the air, the way their bodies moved together, the murmured affections they’d shared. The earliest days of their kingdom, of their shared life, shining in perfect light...

Damen blinked open his eyes again, back in Delpha. Around him, sunbeams slanted in lazy lines, the afternoon slowly shifting toward evening. Damen raised his head, squinting out across the water. The tide had receded.

He’d fallen asleep.

Looking to his right, Damen discovered that the beach was now empty, the children no doubt having been escorted back to the village for the evening meal by the young woman. Without their happy chatter, only the sounds of nature remained; distant birdsong, waves cresting gently across the shore in perpetual accompaniment.

Glancing to his left, Damen felt himself begin to smile as he took in the shape of Laurent lying next to him. Spread out atop an oversized towel, the position of Laurent’s body mirrored Damen’s. He’d set up the silk awning they’d brought along, the shade of the canopy sheltering him from the sun. At the far corner of Laurent’s towel, Damen could see a small pile of shells. Perfect white scallops with their shiny pink cups, colorful spotted cowries, all gathered neatly together. Laurent had clearly collected them himself, keeping the ones he liked best. Damen’s heart thrummed in his chest at the image of Laurent quietly combing the beach, frowning in concentration as he plucked hidden treasures from the sand.

Laurent’s eyes were closed. Whether he was asleep or not, Damen couldn’t tell. Reaching forward, he gently brushed his fingertips across Laurent’s face, sweeping away the hair that had fallen across his forehead, sea salt clinging to each strand. Following the downward slope of Laurent’s shoulder with his palm, Damen reveled in the heat of Laurent’s summer-warm skin beneath silken cloth.

When he reached the bare curve of Laurent’s elbow, Damen carefully folded his hand into the bend of his arm, squeezing gently. Just to touch him; to hold Laurent and feel him within reach. Laurent made a small sound of pleasure and ever so slightly shifted closer to Damen in response.

For a long moment, Damen just observed Laurent in repose, taking in the happy upturn of his lips, the loose arrangement of his limbs, gone pliant and yielding. When it came, Damen let the swell of contentment, felt and shared with Laurent, wash over him like a wave.


	3. Chapter 3

It was not always simple. With time and trust, the thorns of the past had withdrawn, but sometimes, they still came close enough to encroach upon Laurent’s mind - his defenses lowered just far enough for the vines to tangle in. Sometimes, Damen could only remain at Laurent’s side as he fought through the clawing nettles of his own thoughts; asking for nothing, offering himself in whatever way he was wanted.

But most times, it was like this.

Rolling off Damen’s body, Laurent tumbled back onto the opposite side of their bed, breathless. His arms and legs, sated and loose, lay unmoving wherever they fell, his graceless sprawl matching his flushed grin. Laurent was a picture of post-coital bliss from where Damen gazed down at him, propped up on an elbow, smiling against his palm.

“_Fuck_, I love you,” Laurent murmured on a breath of laughter, eyes still closed, orgasm rippling out through his body.

Damen felt the flutter of a new and familiar kind of pleasure at his words. He laughed softly with Laurent, taking time to luxuriate in the satisfied ease his own body, the feeling of warmth and happiness expanding between them.

Reaching out, Damen draped his arm across Laurent’s torso and drew him close again. He stroked gently down the side of Laurent’s body, soothing, a barely-there caress of his fingertips. The drag of his palm was tender against the softness of Laurent’s skin, the pleasing musculature of his chest. Laurent shivered at the lightness of the touch. For a fleeting moment, Damen’s thumb caught the pinked flesh of his nipple; Laurent twitched and gasped lightly under Damen’s hand, his smile briefly widening.

Damen noted his reaction with interest, but continued on his set path. To Laurent’s nearest shoulder, Damen added his mouth. He trailed kisses along the length of Laurent’s upper arm, murmuring sweet simplicities into his skin between the soft press of his lips. In turn, Laurent lifted a hand to cup the back of Damen’s neck. His thumb stroked mindlessly along the shell of Damen’s ear, through the curls that laid there, an encouraging touch.

The movement brought them even closer. Damen hummed happily into the curve of Laurent’s neck, his lips parting against this new and inviting expanse of skin. Damen indulged in a series of long, open-mouthed kisses along the column of his throat, where Laurent was most sensitive. Laurent, sighing under his ministrations, let his arm drop across the width of Damen’s shoulders. Then, he applied his strength and guided Damen to where he wanted him: closer.

With only a shift of his hips, Damen’s body came to cover most of Laurent’s, hovering atop him. To press inside would be as simple as rocking forward to close the infinitesimal space between them. But that was not Damen’s purpose.

When Damen made love to Laurent with his body, there was a finite end; an incontrovertible climax after which any progression doubtlessly slowed and came to a stop. Making love like this, however, could go on forever. An intermission of tenderness; not as a means to an end, but to be near Laurent, to feel the closeness of their hearts and bodies, to speak and be known without words.

Below him, Laurent’s eyes fluttered open for the first time, immediately breaking apart each and every one of Damen’s thoughts. He gazed up at Damen, not in confusion at their arrested motion, but with a warmth of affection and happiness so dear to Damen that he could only be compelled to bring their mouths together.

Laurent always kissed with such abandon. Even in the moments he couldn’t lose himself to his own body, he gave himself up to Damen entirely. With Laurent, kissing was done for its own sake, its own pleasure. And for Damen, Laurent’s pleasure was second to nothing else.

Above him now, Damen kissed Laurent with all of the devotion and adoration he felt, ever growing inside himself. Their lips parted together, the heat of their mouths meeting with a familiar, contented slide. From between their bodies, Laurent lifted both hands to hold Damen’s face in his palms. He pulled back briefly, their eyes locking for an instant. Then, Laurent gently tilted Damen’s head to the side, just enough to press a reverent kiss high on his cheekbone.

Damen blinked down at him, stunned by the simple honesty of the gesture. In all their years, Laurent would never stop surprising him. Helpless, Damen could do nothing more than bring their lips together again. His fingers brushed from Laurent’s cheek to his chest, along his side and down to his hip, touching every inch of his flushed skin with all of the tenderness he craved, the love he deserved.

He spoke it, too, murmured against Laurent’s lips: “I love you,” repeated as they kissed endlessly on.

Their duties awaited them, kingdom and kingship lingering just outside their door. But for now, first and forever, there was this.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to mark this fic as complete for now, given that I'm about to spend the next five months getting my ass kicked at law school. If I do get the chance to write more about Laurent's happiness, there may be additional chapters to follow!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, ily <3
> 
> Come find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/dumbbestfriends)! Tumblr fic post also available [here](https://mooodlighting.tumblr.com/post/186830990775/when-the-days-have-no-numbers).


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